Exploring social touch in autistic and non-autistic adults via a self-report body-painting task: The role of sex, social context and body area.
Autistic adults—especially women—find social touch less pleasant, so always ask first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Mello et al. (2024) asked autistic and non-autistic adults to paint on a body outline.
Colors showed how pleasant, erogenous, or appropriate they felt touch in different places.
They tested friendly, intimate, and neutral settings and looked for sex differences.
What they found
Autistic adults rated social touch as less pleasant in every setting.
Autistic women reported the strongest dislike for casual or intimate touch.
Non-autistic adults felt little difference across contexts.
How this fits with other research
Cascio et al. (2008) found autistic adults feel vibration and heat pain more, yet light-touch detection is normal.
The new study adds that even when the skin feels the touch, the social meaning still hurts.
Sapey-Triomphe et al. (2023) showed self-report, behavior, and brain measures do not always line up.
Manuel’s work keeps the self-report lens but zooms in on social context, extending that mixed-map picture.
Delgado-Lobete et al. (2020) already saw autistic women hide their traits more; Manuel shows they also hide from touch.
Why it matters
Before you pat a shoulder or offer a side-hug, ask.
A quick “Is this okay?” prevents meltdowns and builds trust.
Note that autistic women may smile while cringing inside, so watch for small pull-away cues and respect a no.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
What is already known about the topic?At least in neurotypical individuals, social touch represents an important channel for emotional communication associated with social bonding and pain/anxiety modulation. Autistic adults report to avoid social touch more and to have different tactile sensitivity than their non-autistic comparisons.What this paper adds?Few studies specifically investigated social touch in autistic individuals, and none of them examined the role of participants' sex, social context in which social touch occurs, and specific body areas being touched. In our study, adult participants reported how pleasant, erogenous and appropriate they would consider touches delivered by another person over their entire body in intimate (date), friendly (dance class) and professional (physiotherapy-massage session) social contexts. Autistic adults reported social touch to be less pleasant, erogenous and appropriate specifically in intimate and friendly social contexts and in body areas typically touched in these situations. Importantly, autistic females seem more at risk to experience unpleasant social touch as, although they considered it more unpleasant than non-autistic females and autistic males, they did consider it similarly appropriate in professional social contexts where touch is normed to be socially appropriate.Implications for practice, research or policyOur results might improve awareness and understanding about autistic adults' different, and often more discomforting, experience of social touch and thus help consider and respect it during everyday social interactions. Our results might also benefit future research investigating, for instance, the neural underpinnings of social touch differences in autism or aiming at developing support for autistic individuals seeking help in the diverse spheres of social touch.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2024 · doi:10.1177/13623613231218314